


The Falling Skies

by crystanagahori



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Dark-ish, F/M, Fix-It, Post-JE, Tatennant Secret Santa
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-30
Updated: 2015-12-18
Packaged: 2018-05-07 06:43:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 13,320
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5446961
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crystanagahori/pseuds/crystanagahori
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"I would rather die," she told him. "My forever is different from his, I know it's silly to believe it. I would rather die like I am supposed to than break so many rules. I...I'm not supposed to let you do this," she informed him. "He would want me to stop you." </p><p>---</p><p>When a stranger decides to take the universe into his own hands, he starts at the one place he knows will change it all. Written for Davidtennantstrainers for the Tatennant Secret Santa, 2015.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [DavidTennantsTrainers](https://archiveofourown.org/users/DavidTennantsTrainers/gifts).



> Davidtennantstrainers asked for something dark, so this happened. I am so sorry, but it is going to be angsty and kind of painful. I will try to make it good though! Er…Happy Christmas?

**Chapter One**

Christmas 2006

On a Rooftop in London 

 

The Doctor was a little surprised at her confusion. Everyone knew about what happened on Christmas Day, and everyone knew where the trouble started. Christmas 2005, the year he fought the Sycorax and lost his hand, and Ro—

Best not think about that. He frowned at the bride in front of him, his eyebrows furrowed. 

“Great big spaceship?” He asked her. “Hopping over London? You didn’t notice?”

 

To his utter surprise, Donna _shrugged_. She was throwing off everything that had happened to him last year in just a simple shimmy of her shoulders. She didn’t mean it, of course. It wasn’t her fault she had no idea. But there was just something about it that was so… _odd._ The Doctor had never met anyone just had no idea what happened on that Christmas Day. 

In the distance, standing not too far from the still smoking TARDIS, a mysterious, dark figure nodded to himself. He surveyed the scene before him, trying his hardest to detach, to stop himself from interrupting. Not now. He was here to find the point of time to change, not to change this. This was moment that needed to exist and be true. 

          “I had a bit of a hangover,” Donna said dismissively at the Doctor’s point, not at all embarrassed to admit what she had been doing on Christmas Day. 

 

           The stranger smiled. This was it. He knew it. This was the perfect place to start.  

* * *

_I had a bit of a hangover._

 

He pressed a few buttons on the device on his wrist, feeling himself being pulled to that exact spot in time where Donna hadn’t seen the spaceship in the sky. He made sure to cover his face as he slipped through the time streams, following the irresistible pull she had over him.  She was lying in bed in the midst of the world’s panic. To anyone else, it looked like Donna Noble was just another person who had a little too much fun on Christmas Eve, resting off a wild night with her mates.  But he knew better. He could see the timelines converging around her, compensating for an event that had yet to happen, that already happened, that was happening now. It depended on where you were looking at it from. 

_I want to stay._

_I was gonna be with you. Rest of my life. Traveling...in the TARDIS._

_The Doctor-Donna._

He saw those timelines and broke them apart with his bare hands, unraveling the threads without care or thought to the consequences. He heard sounds of footsteps thundering upstairs and Donna beginning to stir in her bed. Already the universe was compensating for the change, tipping slowly towards the chaos that the stranger wanted to create. He was already halfway out of the house when he heard her gasp awake. 

“What the hell is going on?”  
He almost stopped an turned back to tell her what was happening, why he had done what he just did, but he remained firm and kept walking. 

“A spaceship in the sky, Donna, it’s a bloody spaceship in the sky!” Her mother yelled as she ran into the room. They had no idea that he had been there at all.  

 

When he came back to that fateful Christmas Day in London, they were already in the HC Clements building, Donna, the Doctor and Lance. The Doctor ran around the computers, frantically searching for an answer to his questions, not knowing that the key to everything was the groom who watched him warily, playing his role perfectly until the very end. Donna followed, slightly confused but determined to follow this…alien to the end. It was that kind of blind devotion he always got from strangers that usually led to the most trouble. 

The Doctor typed frantically into the computer, completely missing the dark figure standing a few feet away from them, simply observing. All Donna had to do was look up a little and she would see him. But the timelines around her wouldn’t allow it. He was sorely tempted to break them here, once again. But this wasn’t the right time. 

“…HC Clements was brought up twenty-three years ago by the Torchwood Institute,” the Doctor quickly explained, which prompted surprise from Lance. _Liar,_ the figure thought from behind them. _You ugly liar._ _You’ll get what’s coming to you._  

Meanwhile, Donna blinked in confusion. She was still trying to catch up. It was obvious that she was trying to hide her frustration. “Who are they?”

“They were behind the Battle at Canary Wharf,” The Doctor said in a no-nonsense tone, not missing the way Lance nodded knowingly at the reference, again. Donna tried not to let her frustration show, trying to pretend that she knew who they were. But the Doctor could see right through that. He always could, even if he wasn’t really thinking about it at the time.  

“Cyberman Invasion,” the Doctor said. 

Nothing. She breathed, and he had hoped she would recognize it, but nope. The stranger in the corner didn’t miss the way Lance rolled his eyes. _Bastard._

“Skies over London full of Daleks.”  
Something flickered in Donna’s face. Comprehension, perhaps?

“I was in Spain,” she pointed out with a shrug, almost relieved that she had an excuse. Or did she? 

“They had Cybermen in Spain,” the Doctor said, his brows furrowed. Maybe he was _just_ a little bit hurt over the fact that someone had actually missed an event that changed the flow of time forever, but that was him. To have someone have absolutely no idea of what happened, of what he had lost…it was odd, to say the least. 

“Scuba diving,” she said. 

Did they even have scuba diving in Spain? The figure in the corner almost laughed. He managed to stop himself just in time. 

“That big picture Donna, you keep missing it,” the Doctor pointed out, before he focused once again on the task ahead. The stranger shook his head. The Doctor had no idea. Donna wasn’t _intentionally_ missing the big picture; she was being forced to. Having no memory of any of these other events would make sure that she never would know. Time had compensated around her to fit the horror that she will be (had been, in his point of view) put through. Somebody had to stand for it. Somebody had to fight for her. 

 

_Scuba diving._

The figure in the corner turned to his device as soon as the three scampered off to the elevators. Within seconds, he found himself in Spain as Cybermen marched the streets, people screaming for help. He was in Majorca. 

Oh, so they _did_ have scuba diving in Spain. That was nice to know.

He weaved quickly through the panicked crowd, people passing him like they didn’t see him there. It was better for him that way. He followed the glowing timelines he could see until he found her, on a boat at least fifty meters from the shore, blissfully unaware of the danger happening on land. All she had to do was turn around and see that something was going on. 

He reached up, and tested the timelines in his hands. Those glorious things bent and broke to his will, and the power was almost maddening. Almost. 

He picked up one of them and snapped it. 

Almost immediately, he saw Donna’s gorgeous red locks turn to the direction of the shore. She gave a scream so ear-piercing it could have stopped a Cyberman stone dead. 

But the stranger was already walking away. There were many more of these little adjustments to correct before he could push through the next part of his plans. There was no time to linger. 

 


	2. Chapter 2

 

_Shan-Shen Bazaar_

Donna and the Doctor pushed through the crowds like giddy schoolchildren that just been let loose in a candy store. Every little thing that caught their eye, they made sure to drag the other over to have a look. Frothing fleur de sel tea from the heart of the Bountiful Planet of the People’s Republic of China, gorgeous silks with living dragons crafted from the spindles of silkworms bred in their home planet. Donna inhaled it all, trying to settle herself with the fact that she was in a flipping alien planet! After so many adventures, so many heartaches (and god there had been many), she still couldn’t and would not trade this life for anything else. They would have to physically drag her from the TARDIS while she kicked and screamed. Not while she had her skinny Spaceman on her arm. Oh the universe had horrible, horrible things, it was true, but it was all worth it to see the stars with her best friend. 

Donna couldn’t really ask for more at that point. 

After skipping past a couple of stalls and slightly full from the Silurian specialty noodles (she didn’t ask) the Doctor ate with her, Donna was walking ahead of him in the market. From her vantage point, she could see him exclaiming with a salesman on the planetary origins of the biggest sea urchin she had ever seen. She was never a fan of sushi, and when the Doctor gave the spiky creature’s insides a lick, she knew it was time to walk ahead. 

“Tell your fortune, lady?”

From a distance, the stranger watched Donna smiling to herself as she was lost in her own thoughts. He longed to approach her, to attach her to his side and never let her go. His enemies would accuse him of letting his emotions dictate his actions, but they did not understand the amount of self-control it took him to do this. To watch her from a distance, to bend time slowly and follow a plan. Calculating, certainly. Emotional? Only a little bit. 

Donna regarded the fortune teller’s dubious actions, still naïve enough to think it would be fun to have her fortune told while in a completely alien planet. She had no idea the amount of trouble that simple thing caused the universe. He was not going to let that happen again. Time to put the next phase of his plans into place. 

The stranger made his move, moving from his spot and throwing off his coat, finding himself within touchable distance of Donna Noble. His insides calmed, and for what felt like the first time in a very long time, he was at peace. She was real under his touch, their hearts still beating to the same rhythm, the same pulse of time that converged around her.

He placed his hand on her shoulder and his entire world felt complete. He could practically see the universe adjusting to the fact he was making with a touch of his hand, still trying to decide if this was possible or not. 

“Donna,” he spoke her name, and his pulse quickened, double time when she actually responded and regarded him. She blinked up at him, opening her mouth to voice her surprise when the fortune teller interrupted them.  

“But Lady, your fortune!” she exclaimed, determined not to lose a customer. “Don’t you want to find out if you will be happy?”

The stranger glowered at the fortune teller, seeing right through her disguise. She gasped in shock and cowered at the sight of the stranger, immediately retreating back into her shop and closing the curtains abruptly.Donna opened her mouth to question when the stranger raised his hand to her temple without really thinking. Their eyes met (the gaze shot right to his heart and the sheer intensity of it staggered him and he almost didn’t do this), and Donna promptly fainted, falling into his arms. He had imagined this. Was this how the Doctor felt when he…when he…

“I’ve got you, Donna,” he whispered into her hair. “I’ve got you.”

* * *

It took the Doctor a minute after Donna had gone to realize that something was wrong. Donna tended to always walk ahead of him when they were exploring an alien planet (whether it was impatience or excitement, he wasn’t sure) so the Doctor had a kind of mental radius limit of where he would start to panic at their distance. It helped Donna know when it was time to wait for him, and let him know that it was time to hurry before she got too far from him. 

But this time, he couldn’t see her at all. The way his stomach plummeted to the floor told him that she was much, much farther than his usual radius had allowed. 

“Donna?” He called instinctively, ignoring what his gut instinct was screaming at him. “Donna?” he shouted again, jogging up ahead. Where did he last see her? Browsing the fire gem hair combs from Inner Guangsheng? Having Seven Popping Boba Pearl Tea after their big noodle meal? Perhaps she’d gone inside one of the dens?

“Donnnaaaaa!” The Doctor yelled at the top of his lungs as his eyes continued to frantically search the area for the sight of her familiar red hair. His feet pounded on the ground, taking him to places where they had wandered, taking him where he hoped she would be. He put his head through as many alleyways and shops as he could, but had no sight of her. He had just passed a very frightened young fortune teller when he stepped back outside to the bazaar. 

That was when he saw the signs. It made his fears multiply into a thousand sharp points that sent him on immediate edge. The signs were different. Every single Shan Shen syllable was replaced with two words. Two words that made an invisible icy hand reach into his chest and grip his hearts so tightly that he couldn’t breathe. 

_Find me._

_Find me. Find me. Find me._

He saw it in every place one would find letters and words. Street signs, adverts, packaging, even the bright red streamers flying over the bazaar screamed the words to him, as if he didn’t realise this already. The Doctor tried not to think about the last time he had seen this kind of phenomenon happen as he yelled for Donna desperately and several more times. A tiny, naïve part of him hoped she would be back at the TARDIS, ready to tell him off leaving her to wander off on her own. He hit the ground running as he made his way back to the ship. _Pleasepleaseplease let Donna be there. Please._

The words haunted him. Even the usually comforting view of the TARDIS provided no relief as the words were plastered on her. 

_Find me._

_Find me. Find me._

_Find me._

No sign of Donna. The Doctor burst into the TARDIS to see all the lights inside flashing red in time to the breaths that he was trying to catch. His panic heightened with every flash. Every part of the TARDIS was agitated and afraid, the too-telling cloister bell signalling danger. The Doctor watched all of this, already trying to make connections and think of solutions and the next thing he had to do. The words were burned in his considerably large mind. 

_Find me._

“Donna,” he gasped, feeling his knees wobble.  

* * *

_Elsewhere_

Donna’s eyes shot open, and gasped for breath. It was the first time since she came on the TARDIS that she had a nightmare. The ship’s usual humming always helped her sleep well. She realised this fact slowly, and wondered what to make of it. She couldn’t remember what the nightmare was about, or what it was that terrified her, she just knew that it did. She never had trouble remembering dreams before. She used to love interpreting it and finding out if her dream about baby kittens meant she was to find a tall, dark and handsome stranger soon. 

She sat up on her bed and gathered herself. Mornings on the TARDIS always made her feel slightly out of sorts. The Doctor said that it was because of the speed in which the sentient ship hurled through the Time Vortex, but Donna was certain it was just a lack of caffeine. 

Talking of the Doctor, Donna thought, throwing on her night robe and yawning as she padded to the door. Where was he? 

She was just about to reach for the door when something stopped her. Some unknown instinct inside her snapped from her toes to the tip of her head, like she’d been jolted by electricity. Memories flooded into her mind. She woke up this morning just like this. The Doctor could not stop being a prate about taking her to Shan Shen. It’ll be brilliant, he kept saying. You’re going to love it, he promised her. Donna did though, at some point. She loved the bazaar, she loved exploring it. Then she was away from the Doctor and she was speaking to…to…

Tell your fortune, lady? 

The Fortune Teller. That batty woman who wanted to tell her if she was happy. Then someone called her name. He called her name and he…he… 

Donna realised it was the humming that tipped her off first. The TARDIS (was she actually in the TARDIS) wasn’t humming at her feet, but she was definitely in her room. The bed was the same, every piece of furniture was where it should be, as were her personal effects, her photographs, the little knickknacks she’d collected in the course of their travels…but something was off. 

Donna touched the doorknob and nearly screamed when the knob swivelled before she could turn it. She did jump though, taken aback as a stranger walked in. She knew she should know that face, but it just didn't seem to register in her mind. He was a pair of eyes, a nose, a mouth...nothing distinctive, nothing she knew. The thought terrified her. 

“Don’t just walk into my room!” She yelled at her captor just to have something, anything over him. Then she stopped. Was this really her room, though? She focused her glare at the man who had just walked in. Well, she tried, at least. “Who the hell are you?”

"A friend," he spoke in a low voice, and the strangled emotion in his voice just pierced through Donna. He was in pain. She'd only ever heard that pain from her Granddad, when they lost Gran, from her Mum when her father died. The stranger had lost someone, and he couldn't hide it from his voice.

Or Donna was quite possibly imagining things. 

"Sorry about all that," the stranger said, marching in like it was something he did every day. He deftly avoided the clothes and bits and pieces on the floor, moving to stand by the chaise lounge the Doctor claimed he had never seen before. "You wouldn't have liked that fortune teller, she was working for the Trickster." 

"Trickster?"

"Not a nice bloke, him. Or her, depends on that angle you're looking at him...her... from. Places Time Beetles on innocent victims and changes their lives in little ways that make big impacts later on. Like throwing a tiny rock into a still pool. Nobody understands that about time, that it's about the small things, and holding on to the things that you..." He trailed off when he saw her confused and slightly stunned expression. He frowned and scuffled the floor with the tip of his shoe. "...Right. Babbling. I know you hate that, sorry."

"I don't..." Donna began, but shook her head as if to clear her own muddled thoughts. She still wasn't really looking at him. "Where am I?"

He seemed to know the answer to that right away. "Not inside the TARDIS, trust me.. This is a replica I made. Took me ages to find the right colour of carpet."

That sent an involuntary shudder through Donna. Something niggled at the back of her mind about this scenario, like she should recognise it, but can't. 

"Right. Did you kidnap me? Am I being kidnapped?" She asked. "Because the last time I was in a situation like this it was...well, it was last week and I was in a supercomputer that made me think I had a family, and, and children, and..."

"Lee, Jane and Michael," the stranger answered right away. It made Donna suck in a breath, like she had been stabbed. She didn't want to feel this way about it--they weren't real, after all. 

“They weren’t real, but the way you felt about them was. That made them real,” she remembered the Doctor saying, the both of them sitting at the open door of the TARDIS and starting out at the Milky Way. 

“Like Jenny,” Donna said, so low that she almost hoped he didn’t hear her. But his face turned pensive, still staring out at the expanse of stars below their feet.

“Yeah,” he said. 

The universe would find ways to hurt them. To make memories that didn’t seem real. But at least they had someone to share it with. Someone who would believe that it happened. 

Donna shook her head at the memory. Now was not the time to be thinking about tiny moments by the TARDIS door. Certainly not time to remember that the Doctor had insisted they try floating out to the protection bubble of the TARDIS with nothing but ropes around their waists tied to the console to snap them out of the funk. 

Thinking about all of this did make her stop and finally consider a possibility she had never allowed herself to see before. 

"Are you some sort of alien space stalker?" She asked, aghast. "Because I will still fight you, alien boy, don't you dare lay a hand on me!"

The stranger actually laughed, placing his hands in his pockets. "I know you better than you think, earth girl," he teased. His tone was light, but his face was dark. Or at least whatever part of his face Donna managed to register. Where was the Doctor? Would he ever find her? Did he even notice that she was missing? Or care? 

Her captor pulled something from the inside of his pockets and held it up. "Arms out. I don’t want to hurt you, but I have to do this.”

Donna frowned as she held her ams out. As far as kidnappings went, this was the strangest one yet. There were no benevolent leaders trying preserve their culture, tyrannical dictators trying to establish a rule. This was just some bloke who had a way of looking at her like she was completely exposed to him. Even if she couldn't really see him. 

He slapped the white bracelets on her wrists and took a step back. The bracelets started to hum, and Donna felt them weigh her down. 

“What are they?” Donna asked, feeling something inside her reel. She leaned forward, and her kidnapper was quick to hold on to her. Less than an hour with this bloke and already he’d kept her from crashing her face to the ground twice now. It was lot more action in an hour than she had in the last…how many months had she been travelling with the Doctor? 

“You’ll find out soon,” her captor whispered, lowering her back into the bed. “Gather your strength. I won’t lose you again, Donna.”

 


	3. Chapter 3

_TARDIS, The Vortex_

The Doctor sent the TARDIS flying through the Time Vortex, regardless of the console nearly blinding him with the flashing red lights and the sickening feeling that was building up inside him. 

“I know, I know!” He told his ship, stopping himself from doubling over in pain as he punched a button, slammed down a brake and hit his foot against something. Chasing Huon particles to track down Donna was incredibly risky with an ailing TARDIS, and the chances that she still had them were slim to none. But it was the only way the Doctor could think to find her, and it was a slim chance he was willing to take with his ship’s dying breath (his breath, it was almost the same). 

He didn’t know what was wrong with the TARDIS per se—he never did bother to read that manual under the console (Know Your Type 40! A Time Lord’s Most Benevolent Guide to Navigating Time and Relative Dimensions In Space), all he knew was that something was wrong. 

The console wheezed and shuddered and gave a loud bang as the Doctor was sent backwards, falling to the grated console floor. She was refusing to land, and they were already so close. 

“Please, please,” he begged, trying overrides and switch after switch. His hands were shaking. He hated this, he hated not knowing where Donna was, if she was alright, if she was alive, if he was chasing nothing. He told her she needed a tracking device on her, but nooo, Donna had to protest and point out that she wasn’t daft enough to let him out of her sight.

That was the last time he was going to listen to her (that wasn’t true, and he knew that, but still, it needed to be thought once or twice without Donna knowing). “We need to find her, come onnnnnn!” 

The TARDIS gave a shudder and a loud, painful groan. The Doctor thought he was going to sick up all over the floor with the pressure. The cloister bell continued its haunting toll as the Doctor felt timelines twisting as they unraveled through the Vortex. 

Had Donna been here, he would have explained why the TARDIS was struggling (to say the least) in its flying, and why the cloister bell was insistent on drilling holes in their ears. 

Imagine the TARDIS as a car that drove down the highway (a rather complex, rickety old automobile Donna would scoff), and that the highway was the Time Vortex. Someone or something had started ripping into the Vortex, digging potholes and changing roads, smashing lanes and creating turns the TARDIS couldn’t quite navigate. If he wasn’t careful, he might end up somewhere bad. Like a parallel world or something. 

Nothing good would come out of this, he knew. But he had to try. 

* * *

_Torchwood 3 Hub  
Cardiff_

Martha Jones’ eyes grew wide at the sight of the bright blue box smashing through almost every piece of equipment they had left in the Hub. She gasped at its unpredictable spinning. If she didn’t know any better, she would think it was about to—

CRASH. 

Martha immediately jumped, her soldier’s instincts getting ahead of her as she sprang forward to the door. 

“What was that?” Mickey’s crisp voice resounded from the back, appearing in the room as Martha stood vigil as she waited for the TARDIS door to open. The next question died on Mickey Smith’s lips as he came to stand next to Martha, the both of them jumping backward when the door flipped open. The Doctor grunted as he pulled himself upwards—the TARDIS was on its back, so everything inside was nothing short of a mess. It brought him here with its dying breath, and the ship’s insides were dark and quiet. 

“Ow,” the Doctor said, collapsing to his side as he managed to make it out the door. “There goes the swimming pool. Donnnnaaaaa?” He roared, adjusting himself as he looked up. He was just about to open his mouth and say how happy he was to see Martha Jones and Mickey Smith (although not necessarily in the same degree and certainly not together) when he realised that the both of them were pointing guns at him. Big, shiny guns that looked like they were used way more often than he would have allowed. His eyes darkened as he glared down the barrels of the weapons. 

“Martha,” he said, choosing to address her first. “Put those away.”  
“Oh you’re one to talk,” Martha snapped, stepping forward. “Why should I stop myself from shooting you in the hearts right now, after what you did? After everything…”  
The Doctor’s dark face gave instant way to confusion, his brows furrowing as Martha tried to keep herself steady. Mickey was already buckling behind her. Being a frequent traveller and generally usually in sticky situations like this, the Doctor knew when he was missing a part of the picture. This time he was sure he was missing a whole chunk of it entirely. Probably the whole thing, really. He took a quick second to look around him, noting the way something seemed utterly wrong about all of this. Like the universe was tilted on an axis and he couldn’t find his balance. 

Broken, he thought to himself. That was the word he would use to describe it. This universe is broken. The last time this happened was when…

“An alternate universe,” he completed his own thought. “Oh yes! Timelines ripping apart, points changing…this is an alternate universe! An entirely new chain of incidents!” He knew he was quoting someone and that he was at gunpoint, but if Martha or Mickey were going to shoot him, they already would have. Plus he was starting to see what was going on. “Sometime down the line, someone changed a point, or points, in history, creating this universe!”

“Stop it!” Mickey exclaimed, pointing the gun at him again as if to make his point clearer. “Just…just stop flapping your gob and tell us where you put the paradox machine!”

But there was already a change in the room. Martha’s eyes were wide as she lowered her weapon. She gasped so audibly that Mickey nearly pointed the gun at her. 

“Oh my god,” she whispered, staring at the battered, slightly bruised Doctor with wide eyes. She clamped her hand over her mouth. “It…it’s you.” 

The Doctor had no idea what that was supposed to mean, so he said nothing. But Martha’s weapon was already down and discarded, and she was making a beeline straight for him. 

“Doctor!” Martha exclaimed, flinging herself into his arms like she’d just been released from captivity. The Doctor was quick to accept her hug, because let’s face it, when Martha Jones was giving you a hug, you could not say no. “I’ve never been so happy to see you!” 

“That’s not what you were saying five minutes ago,” the Doctor grumbled as Martha disentangled herself from the Doctor’s embrace. He lowered himself slightly and placed his hands on his shoulders. “Martha Jones,” he said with a tiny smile on his face. “What happened?”

“Hang about, how do we know that this is the Doctor?” Mickey asked, still dubious. “He could be pretending, they look alike, after all!” 

“But they’re not the same,” Martha said, shaking her head. She placed her hands over the Doctor’s chest, already knowing what she was looking for. “Two hearts, see? This is him.”  
Mickey didn’t look like he quite believed Martha, but put his weapons down nonetheless. The Doctor didn’t miss the way Mickey flinched when he approached. The Doctor said nothing as Mickey Smith reached out to his chest, placing his palm smoothly over the Doctor's clothes. The Doctor made a little noise and Martha and Mickey flinched (he tried not to note the look of fear on their faces).

"Your hands are cold," he explained to Mickey, who rolled his eyes and checked his hearts, Sure enough Mickey seemed satisfied to feel the Doctor's hearts beating wildly in his chest. He was pretty sure they were never going to calm down while he wasn't in sight of Donna.

“Martha,” he repeated to his former companion. “What happened?”

“That depends on when you’ve come from,” Martha said seriously, and the both of them knew how important that little point was. 

"I've just lost Donna in Shan Shen," he said quickly. "She did something that I hadn't...I mean, I never thought she would, until...the TARDIS knew to find her here. I don't know how, but she...she doesn't have Huon particles anymore, so she must have sent a message to me and the TARDIS, telling her where she was."

If Martha was confused by the last few things the Doctor said, she didn't let him know. Instead she did a little math in her head. 

"That would be about a month ago for the Donna of this time," she said. "But based on what she told me, she was trapped in another parallel world there. Something about Rose and turning left..."

"That's the point of the divergence," Mickey said, suddenly sounding quite gown up. "When the alternate universe was made." 

"It's also the other Doctor walking through the Rift," Martha pointed out. "God this is quite..."

"Wibbly wobbly, timey wimey?" The Doctor asked Martha. She didn't seem to find it all that funny. Neither did he, to be honest.

"You need to know the whole story, Doctor," Martha said. "From the moment Donna freed herself from that Time Beetle." 

The Doctor's eyebrow flew up at that. It was time for Martha to tell a story again. 

* * *

When Martha finished her story, the Doctor felt his entire body sway with the force of what was happening. He collapsed into a nearby chair as he tried to catch his breath. 

A metacrisis. Planets aligning, Daleks in the sky, Rose blowing holes into parallel universes…the hand, the hand, that bloody hand. Donna touching it. Donna gaining and losing everything. Him robbing her of her memories. Another Doctor, left behind in a parallel world, until he found a way to simply walk through the Rift and change events. The Titanic crashing into Buckingham Palace. Pompeii saved. The Sontarans nearly choking the world until Jack Harkness surrendered himself to them and died. Martha didn’t know all the details, but she knew enough. The Metacrisis Doctor was playing Time Lord with the Vortex, all to keep Donna to himself. 

“It’s him,” the Doctor said. “The Metacrisis Doctor. He took my…the Donna from that moment in time on Shan Shen here. Her existence here, and everything that's happening can only be sustained by a paradox machine.” 

Martha nodded, rubbing the Doctor’s arm to stop him from drifting. “He’s kept her away from everyone. The other Donna, the Donna in our time with her memories gone… he…he killed her. I saw it with my own eyes, Doctor.” 

She had to pause here, and he felt the horror from her voice filling him. His chest tightened. “Then he took your Donna. He’s using her to sustain the machine, as she’s a paradox too. He’s trying to find a way to prevent what you had…you will do to her.” 

The Doctor’s face was white as a sheet, and he was sweating. This was too much, all too much. He keeled over and and sicked up all over the side. This was…this was so far from what he was anticipating. Everything was so skewed and wrong. He was running out of time to keep this timeline from becoming permanent. Already the universe was starting to compensate for the Donna Paradox, and his mind was protesting, shouting at it to stop, because this wasn’t right, this wasn’t fair. If he gave in to his impulses and bent time to his will, then…he probably would have done the same. 

They had warned them at the Academy. This was why the Time Lords preferred to stay in their Citadel and remain watching the universe turn its own axis. To temptation to change everything was too great.

He wiped the side of his mouth with his brown suit. The TARDIS would need to be be left alone here. Maybe the Rift energy would help her slowly repair herself. But for now, he needed to find Donna before it was too late. 

* * *

_10 Downing Street_   
_London_

The Metacrisis Doctor walked through the halls of Downing Street and streaked his hand across the wall, feeling the timelines ripple to his touch. Since the fall of the royal family, the government made moves to transfer to Buck House to boost morale, leaving Downing Street open. He liked staying here. It reminded him of his run-in with the Slitheens and…

Right. Not him per-se. The Doctor. 

They weren’t the same. Rose didn’t understand that. He was dark and light, the best of Donna and the worst of the Doctor, trapped in a world where he was supposed to remain human and happy with the last person he wanted to be with. He didn't understand how the Doctor could just leave him in that parallel world, knowing how they both felt and how it was all going to end. He could have helped. He could have let Donna be heard. 

Instead the Doctor took it all away, for all of them. 

The Metacrisis Doctor had enough. Before the holes Rose made closed completely, he walked through the Rift, grabbing on to what he could as he was hurled across galaxies and Vortexes. That was how he learned to use his part human, part Time Lord mind to take matters into his own hands, quite literally. He learned how to pull timelines apart, how the universe compensated for paradoxes, how he was going to build his own paradox machine from the bits and bobs that washed up with him on the Rift. He stole and repaired Jack’s Vortex Manipulator and used that to jump across this reality to make one of his own. Now all he needed was one thing, and Donna would never be lost again.

It would be worth it in the end. 

He paused in front of the entrance to Donna’s room, an entire area he spent precious time recreating, plucking little things from the TARDIS in the future or the past, to place a copy here, just to make her more comfortable. The best thing about this entire area of the new Downing Street was that Donna’s room was completely sealed off. It was just one second out of sync in the time he created, very difficult to find unless you knew what you were looking for. 

He took a breath and touched the doorknob. At the same time he snapped off the perception filter he had been wearing whenever he was around Donna. He wanted to ease her in to everything that had happened, to her, to him, what he was planning. She wasn’t going to appreciate some of the things he had done, he was sure—but she had to understand. After all, he was a part of her. They were inevitable. 

* * *

The Metacrisis Doctor entered the room slowly and cautiously as he listened for the steady thrumming of the Paradox Gauntlets, a fancy word he liked to use for the device he had created to power the paradox machine everyone was so desperate to find. He used this Donna, the Donna who still remembered everything, because she wasn't lost. Telling her everything would not possibly result in her dying. More than the TARDIS, Donna was a convergence point. If there was anyone that was going to determine what would happen next, it was her. She was the perfect way to make the universe compensate for...well. The two of them.

"Donna," he said gently, kneeling by her bed to watch her stir awake. The gauntlets took a considerable amount of energy to maintain, but the Metacrisis Doctor was sure Donna could compensate. She was brilliant, after all. "Are you awake?"

"No," she answered, throwing her arms around him with still closed eyes. "Don't wake me up just yet, Spaceman." 

The Metacrisis Doctor had no idea how she did it, but Donna pulled him close and kissed him like she was fully conscious. He felt his insides melt into the touch of her lips against his. She was warm and inviting, and he found himself pulling her closer, wanting much more. No anchovies or ginger beer this time, he thought ruefully. It wasn't even his memory. But the desire, the utter wanting was there, streaming in from him and from the man he had sprung out of. It shot the Metacrisis Doctor like a bolt of lightning. Surely, surely Donna must know he did this all for her?

She sat up slowly and pulled the Doctor over in front of her, and he was only too happy to comply, straddling her as her hands roamed from the tips of his hair, around his ears, the nape of his neck (oh god), skimming over the single heart hammering in his chest until...oh. Oh. 

The Doctor moved quickly, throwing off his blue jacket and shirt, tossing his belt aside. Donna quickly rose up and kissed him with a boldness the Doctor had only dreamed of. He dared move his hand lower to the top of her breast when her eyes finally opened, slowly. 

"D-Donna?" The Metacrisis Doctor fumbled, almost jumping back when she pulled his hand firmly over her full breast, teaching him to cup it, test its weight, to touch the peaks that were sharply waiting for his attention. "Are you..."

Her sharp blue eyes pierced him, and the Metacrisis Doctor nearly staggered. 

"I told you not to wake me up," she sighed, raising her hips slightly to grind against his now very obvious Little Time Lord. "And you're not my Doctor." 

She pushed him away, and he realized she had her hand over his chest the entire time. The Doctor sat away from her as she scurried towards the headboard, her hair mussed from sleep, her lip swollen and, and...

"Now if you would be so kind to tell me, who the bloody hell are you?" She asked him sharply. 

"I'm the Doctor," he said, and already they both knew it was wrong. "Kind of. I'll explain it to you in a bit," He said, running a hand through his hair, and Donna stopped herself from swallowing thickly. The Not- Doctor's face grew dark and stormy as he turned that gaze on to her. His slightly swollen lips were set in a determined line. "But you have to know, Donna. I will save you. I won't let the Doctor do anything to you."

"What are you on about?" Donna asked. God she hadn't felt this clueless since the first time she met the Doctor. "The Doctor would never hurt me. And I don't need saving, thank you, unless your bloody bracelets succeed in killing me off." 

The Metacrisis Doctor sighed. "He would if he thinks it would stop you dying," he said. "I'm half-him, Donna. I did this, all of this because of how he...I...we...feel about you."

"And what is it you...he...you two...feel about me?" Donna asked. 

“About the same thing you do," he said. "I'm half you.”

* * *

Donna felt like she was part of some sick, twisted fairytale as the Metacrisis Doctor showed her around Downing Street. He held on to her hand like he was still trying to believe she was there, chattering off excitedly about how he came to acquire the place, the improvements he made. There was a little more state and order to it all than Donna expected, only proving that this Metacrisis Doctor with only one heart wasn’t the Doctor she had…feelings for. 

She was woman enough to admit that she did love the Doctor. The Metacrisis Doctor hadn’t been lying when he said that he knew everything. How Donna felt, how he made her feel…and apparently, how the Doctor himself felt. 

How could she not fall in love with that skinny streak of alien? Yes, she had promised ‘just mates’, but there was just something about him that made Donna finally feel at peace with herself, like the world had finally fallen into place. Someone finally saw something more of her than she thought of herself, and whether she believed him or not wasn’t the point. Falling in love with your best friend wasn’t the strangest thing that happened. 

Discovering that you made a half-clone of him who decided to take matters into his own hands and kill your future self was strange. In fact Donna wouldn’t even use the word strange to describe it. It was horrifying, the lengths that the Metacrisis Doctor had taken to ‘save her.’ She knew she should do something about it, but the damn bracelets he had slapped on her were making her exhausted…woozy…

“Whoops!” The Metacrisis Doctor (bloody hell, just when she thought ‘the Doctor’ was a really ridiculous name to call someone) exclaimed as Donna swayed slightly. “Sorry. I really shouldn’t keep you walking around. I just wanted you to see one thing. One thing and I’ll put you back in bed, okay, sweetheart?”  
It jarred something inside Donna when she heard those words coming out of his mouth. Some dim-witted part of her was elated to hear him say something so endearing, but she knew it the Donna-part of him that was saying that. This isn’t the Doctor, this isn’t your Doctor, she repeated in her mind. Her Doctor would never say such endearments even on pain of death. He wasn't the typical sort of bloke, given that he was, in fact, a skinny alien. He would never, ever do any of the things that this Doctor had done. 

Yet Donna didn’t have the heart to correct him. She couldn’t. Not after everything he had been through. Donna wasn’t condoning it at all, but after he told her everything he had done…maybe letting him have the little things would comfort him. Satisfy him, even just a little. Or maybe she just couldn’t fight him. 

They moved past the staff—yes the Metacrisis Doctor had actual staff on board. He apparently went back in time and bought stocks off of Google and Apple and the rest is history—and into a large room. The walls were carved out and replaced with what looked like a massive telescope, charts and compasses strewn about everywhere. There were little bits and bobs of equipment that Donna didn’t recognise haphazardly messed about, with a small assortment of her favourite snack foods arranged in a corner. From the looks of it, he was charting something on his maps, writing things down, tracking something…all written in the oddly beautiful circular letterings Donna knew to be Gallifreyan. She took a tentative steps towards his notes, brushing his handwriting with her fingertips. The letters looped and swirled around her fingers like they were moving to her touch. 

“I’m tracking the stars,” he pointed out to her, pressing a button on a panel beside him and turning off all the lights. Then a hologram of the universe flashed before them, and Donna felt like she was sitting over the edge of the TARDIS. “The stars are going out, one by one, because the Daleks are lining up the planets in the Medusa Cascade.” 

It was the Metacrisis Doctor’s War Room, Donna slowly realized, touching a star that was just at the edge of her fingertip. He was planning something, and it didn't sit well with her at all.

“It’s a stopping point in time,” he pointed out. “Where a major choice will be made and the universe can compensate for one choice or the other.”

He looked at Donna with so much meaning and emotion that she felt herself stepping back. 

“I promised I would save you,” he reminded her. She noticed him flexing his hand. “This is how.” 

“Doctor,” Donna said, for lack of anything else to call him. She approached him and held on to his arms, hoping she could put some sense it to that silly head of his. He had gone too far, way too far. It wasn’t Donna who needed the saving. Apparently even like this, he needed someone to stop him. “I don’t need saving! I’m right here! I'm perfectly fine! You’ve already taken me away from…”

“It’s not enough,” he argued, his jaw set and his eyes boring dark holes into hers. The pupils in his eyes seemed to be shaking as they recounted memories of things that hadn’t happened yet for Donna. But they were all too real for him. “You have no idea how…how horrible it was when he did it. You looked at me like I was…like I was nothing. I had to... I know how to stop that happening, so l will do it. Got that, Earth girl?”

  
“Master?” A small, machine-generated voice inquired as the door opened. The Metacrisis Doctor squeezed the sides of Donna’s arms before turning to the doorway. When a rusty, clunky and oddly shaped little…dog(?) waited by the door his face glowed with a thousand watt smile. Donna felt her insides melt involuntarily. Her emotions were just all over the place, and she needed to sit. 

“Aw, K-9!” The Metacrisis Doctor exclaimed happily, bounding over to the newcomer as Donna slid into a seat. She snorted at the tin can's name. Trust the Doctor to have a clunky robot supercomputer straight from the seventies as a pet. "Does Sarah Jane know you’re here?” 

"Negative, Master," K-9 beeped back, and Donna wondered briefly who Sarah Jane was. "I was programmed to come as soon as I detected a Time Lord in the vicinity." 

"Time Lord?" Donna gasped, suddenly alert again. The Metacrisis Doctor ignored her and strode over to the tin dog, studying a small panel that appeared on his side.

"He's here," he said, whispering the words like he couldn't believe it himself. Donna watched him take a deep breath, like he was steeling himself for an attack that wasn't there. His voice turned low and deep as he stood beside the metal dog. "Thank you, K-9. You can go back now, Sarah Jane must be worried about you." 

"Of course, Master," the dog chirped before leaving the room. The Metacrisis Doctor squared his shoulder and closed the door, just in time to hear Donna nearly stumble after attempting to stand on her own. Like a switch had been flipped inside him, the man in the blue suit jumped up and came to Donna's aid, telling her to lean on to him. 

"Told you that you needed to stay in bed," he pointed out, brushing a strand of matted, sweaty hair away from her face. She pressed her forehead against his side, like his skin was a balm to the burning inside her. 

"Told you I don't need...saving," she sighed, pressing harder when she realised his skin wasn't as cool as the Doctor's. "You slapped these bracelets on me."

"It's for the both of us, Donna, and you don't have to wear them much longer, I promise, sweetheart," he said, kissing the top of her head. "If all goes well, you'll get what you want. Travelling in the TARDIS. Forever." 

Then with massive strength, the Doctor picked her up and crooked his arm under her knees and her body against his chest. As they walked back to her room, Donna didn't dare ask who she was meant to be travelling in the TARDIS with. 

 


	4. Chapter 4

_Torchwood 3 Hub_   
_Cardiff_

 

"I have to find Donna," the Doctor said, slowly rising to his feet as Martha looked up at him in equal parts of pity and warmth. "She can't be left alone with...with him."

Then he turned back and walked into the TARDIS. He was shaken to his very core, but tried his hardest not to let it show. Martha tentatively followed him inside, watching him crack open the gutters and bring out boxes and chests, presumably to find something that would help them in their situation.

“She’s being kept in a hidden area of Downing Street, Doctor, it’s impossible,” Micky said, jogging inside, only to stop at his tracks when he saw the Doctor’s glare burning into him. His knuckles were white as he gripped the box in his hands, his eyes blazing with anger at the innocent boy who dared suggest that it was impossible. 

“I will find her,” he said, slamming a chest shut when his search proved futile. “No matter what the cost.”  
Martha involuntarily shuddered inside her clothes at the thought. She quickly tamped down the little bout of insecurity she felt over the Doctor’s possessiveness of Donna. He searched for you in New New York, remember? And all those other times. Now wasn’t the time for that, because the behavior he was displaying here was worrying. This was exactly where the other Doctor was coming from, he was drawing on the same desperate emotions to motivate him, and that was the last thing anyone needed. The Doctor was right, they needed to find Donna, and getting him angry was not the way to do it. 

“What do you need, Doctor?” Martha asked airily, throwing Mickey a glare as she walked over to him. The Doctor was putting items aside, which for all intents and purposes, looked like junk. 

“Hold on to these, will you, Martha Jones?” he asked, placing a rubber duck, a spatula, a mason jar, some old wiring, a boomerang and a diamond necklace in Martha’s arms. 

“What are these for, then?” she asked him as he dusted off his suit jacket and retrieved the sonic screwdriver. His expression changed into something a little less angry, but still very much focused. He put his glasses on and instructed Martha to spread them on top of a box he had left laid out. 

“I’m trying to hobble together a locator for Donna,” he said. “She could have been parsecs away by the time I realized she was gone in Shan Shen, and there wasn’t enough time. But now that we know she’s on Earth, I can try to localize the frequencies and track her genetic signature—even if the other Doctor put her somewhere nobody would find her,” he said, working quickly with his hands. He did manage to throw Mickey a disdainful glance before he resumed his work. Martha knelt beside him, just watching with worry. 

“We’ve tried using those kinds of devices before, and they’ve never worked,” she pointed out to him. “Do you think we should get closer to the building?” 

The Doctor suddenly stopped, and looked up like he had become totally distracted by something. He put away the screwdriver and the glasses, looking out at the open door of the TARDIS, where Mickey was standing by. 

“What did I do this time?” Mickey groaned, but the Doctor ignored him and stood up, making a run for the door. 

“Doctor?” Martha asked, following him as he began to move with breakneck speed, rushing towards the exit like he was being chased by a particularly nasty spider. Martha and Mickey were close, and were running so fast that they nearly crashed into him when he stood stock still in the middle of Roald Dahl Plass, breathing hard as he took in the sights before him. 

“Doctor, what is it?” Martha asked, following his wide-eyed gaze as he looked around the plaza. She didn’t notice it right away, but Martha realized that the Doctor was looking at the letters splashed on the side of the Millenium Centre.

_FIND ME FIND ME FIND ME_

_THE NATIONAL GALLERY_

_FIND ME FIND ME FIND ME_

“…how is she doing that?” Martha asked, staring at the letters in awe as the Doctor headed back down to where the TARDIS was waiting for them. 

“No idea,” the Doctor said, rushing to the console and pushing and smashing things, as if trying to force the TARDIS awake. "But it's not good. She's getting too close to the Vortex, and the universe is accommodating her. The last time I saw that was with..."

"Rose and the Bad Wolf," Mickey said suddenly, making Martha and the Doctor look to him in surprise. Sometimes Mickey wondered why people were always so surprised when he was able to accomplish things. Like it was hard? "I read the files." 

"Right," The Doctor confirmed, as the TARDIS' time rotor slowly glowed green and moved lazily up and down, and the entire console started shaking like it was weighing her down. "She's on emergency protocol mode so grab on to something, it's going to bumpy, to say the least." 

Something made a loud bang, and smoke started to rise from under the rafters as Martha took the Doctor's advice. She felt her entire body try to fly off the floor as the TARDIS swung and shook violently, more so than the usual. Mickey actually rolled along the floor, until he managed to grab one of the railings and shelf on. The Doctor only needed to keep on hand and foot on the console as his other extremities worked on piloting the ship. 

"Next stop London!" He exclaimed, slamming his hand down the dematerialization button and jiggling the Vortex launcher. In his mind, he reached out to Donna and whispered a silent promise through that connection she was always saying that they had. For once, he wished it were true. _I'm coming for you, Donna. I'm coming._

* * *

_En Route to the National Gallery_

 

"Gramps," Donna breathed, and a flush of warmth and homesickness crashed through her like a wave. Her granddad gasped on his end of the line, knowing who it was with just one word. 

“Oh, my Donna? Is it...is it really you, sweetheart?" He choked out, spluttering into the phone as she heard her mother start exclaiming and crying int the background. "See I told you, Sylvie, I told your our girl would be all right! His Highness did it, he fixed you up right and good, didn't he?" 

Donna's heart clenched inside her chest. Her family must not know that she was supposed to be dead. The Metacrisis Doctor told her as much. He had not been able to take the look of rejection on Donna's face, her blank, dismissive stares. There was no point in keeping her, he had said. Not when I knew you were coming. Why did she call them, anyway? She felt tears fill her eyes as she started sobbing over the phone, Wilf's soothing voice the only balm she had. 

"Oh darling, are you crying?" He asked. 

"Just, happy tears, Gramps," she lied. Fear gripped her throat and threatened to choke her. "Happy to hear your voice." 

"I should say so!" Wilf chortled. "You weren't yourself, Donna. You seemed so unhappy, and we couldn't tell you why, you had no idea how much I wish I could have told you." 

Donna continued to sob for that version of herself, one that nobody knew was gone. The one she never hoped to become (but it was probably inevitable, whatever it is the Doctor will do to her) It was her greatest fear realized, that she vanish right off the face of the earth unhappy, unfulfilled, and unnoticed. It had happened, and only Donna knew how much of a loss it was, even if she had lost nothing at all. 

"Now Donna you are to come home straight away," she head her mother's voice command. "I think he's done enough." 

Donna fought back a choked laugh at her mother's suggestion. She had no idea. But Donna sighed instead and pretended to huff. 

"I'm not leaving him, Mum." She said firmly. She glanced over at the Metacrisis Doctor sleeping against the window of the car they were riding. Apparently car rides knocked him out, just like Donna when she wasn't driving. He snuffled and shifted, curling up towards the window like a giant cat. Donna was finding it hard not to look at him and see the Doctor. 

"He needs me," Donna told her mother. "He needs me to stop him." 

"What utter nonsense! That Doctor is making you funny in the head! Come home now, Donna, or else--"

Donna winced as she pressed the 'end' button on her phone. Her pocket were apparently turning transdimensional after being stored in the TARDIS, and she had to dig her hand in pretty deep before she realized she had her ultra time and space sonicked phone on her. 

The car pulled up just as Donna slipped her phone back in her pocket. The Metacrisis Doctor jerked awake, slightly dazed. 

"We're here, sir," the driver informed them. "The National Gallery."

"Excellent," the Metacrisis Doctor nodded, stretching his arms over his head. "No need to wait for us. Donna and I can walk from here." 

True to his word, the Metacrisis Doctor and Donna walked towards the museum, passing oblivious tourists and street artists. The Metacrisis Doctor kept Donna close, and she didn't fight him. Not while she didn't have a reason to yet. She looked up at the big, grey sky. She was half-expecting to see the TARDIS flying across the sky, spinning madly in its own axis. She had a flash of a memory, where the Doctor yelled at her to jump, his arms extended to her. For one moment, she was flying across the freeway again. 

The Paradox Gauntlets twisted in her wrists, and she had to stop and take a breath. The Metacrisis Doctor was there, though. 

"You okay?" He asked. "We can take those off inside." 

"Why are we here?" She asked him. The Metacrisis Doctor paused, like Donna had jsut asked him an infinitely philosophical question. He looked up at the dome of the gallery. 

"See that?" He asked her. 

"Yeah, it's the National Gallery," she snapped. "Point to something I don't know." 

"It's also the building that houses the paradox machine," the Metacrisis Doctor said, sounding a little too proud of himself at the moment. "Sustaining this alternate universe by the sheer fact that you are a point of convergence. Isn't that brilliant?" He asked, grinning at Donna like he wasn't talking about going too far. "The whole of time is at our fingertips. I can reverse the metacrisis, your memory loss, by gettinG rid of one thing." 

Donna was about to ask what that meant when she remembered how this Metacrisis Doctor was made in the first place. The hand. The hand in the TARDIS. She looked up at him and saw the steely determination on his face. If he was going to destroy the hand, that could only mean...

"I'm no Time Lord, so my paradox machine can only handle so much," he continued without skipping a beat. "Once I destroy that hand, everything will go back. I will never be made, and you and the Doctor will never be apart," he said with a sad, almost jealous smile. "And I've done it all for you." 

Donna swallowed down the sick bile that threatened to rise up her throat. The Metacrisis Doctor was willing to die just so Donna would have her forever? No, no, this wasn't how it was supposed to be! 

"I would rather die," she told him. "My forever is different from his, I know it's silly to believe it. I would rather die like I am supposed to than break so many rules. I...I'm not supposed to let you do this," she informed him. "He would want me to stop you." 

At this, the Metacrisis Doctor's face grew dark. It was the first time Donna was ever on the receiving end of his glare, and it chilled her insides. How could he turn so cold and distant so quickly? How could he love her so much that he thought all of this would be fine? 

"Believe me, Donna," he said. "If its to save you, the Doctor would do much more than this."  

Then, as if summoned by his half-clone, the TARDIS materialized in the middle of Trafalgar Square in front of Donna. She felt her knees buckle at the sight of the blue box (she seemed to be struggling somehow). Her heart leapt in her chest, and a voice whispered to her that everything will work out. The Metacrisis Doctor snapped the gauntlets off Donna's hands, and the TARDIS immediately materialized with what sounded like a final gasp of breath, and the door slammed open to reveal the Doctor. Pale, worried and slightly out of breath. His eyes widened at the sight of Donna as she raised her hands to send him away. 

"Doctor, you have to go!" Donna screamed. "He wants to--"

"I only want to make things right," the Metacrisis Doctor interrupted as he and his almost twin stared each other down. Civilizations could crumble at those glares, but the Doctor stood his ground, as did the Metacrisis Doctor. The TARDIS seemed to shake as the National Gallery's roof glowed. 

"The paradox machine!" Donna gasped. "What's it doing?" 

"A surge," the Doctor gasped, watching the bright red light teeming from the inside, begging to be allowed to burst outward. "Enough paradox energy to break reality in half! Where did you even find that much temporal energy to manipulate?"

The Metacrisis Doctor smiled. "Anything's possible, especially when you have a convergence point feeding energy into a pair of converters, like this handy little Paradox Gauntlet," he said, holding up the bracelets. The Doctor would have appreciated the ingenuity if the situation was so dire. 

"What do you want?" He demanded, screaming into the winds that were starting to build around them. "I don't understand why you're doing this!"

Donna struggled to reach him, but the Matacrisis Doctor's grip on her hand was so firm it might as well have been another pair of irons. "He wants the hand, Doctor!" Donna yelled, hoping he could hear her. "The hand in the TARDIS!" 

The Metacrisis Doctor pulled Donna close to him, his hand placed protectively around her head as he shielded her from the winds. Donna could practically feel the Doctor across them grow shocked at the intimate pose as the Metacrisis Doctor took Donna's face in his hands. She looked up and saw his big brown eyes watery with tears, his lip shaking. He looked utterly terrified and desperate. 

"Please," he said to her, his lips speaking into her ears as he pressed her closer to himself. "Let me save you." 

"You said that I would know how you felt," Donna told him. "If you do love me like I know you do, Doctor, you would know that you can't do this. He'll know what to do at the right time. So will we."

A sudden blast seemed to rock the entire metropolis. Donna stumbled, but the Metacrisis Doctor caught her easily, helping her find her feet. The paradox energy was reaching fever pitch. If the Doctor didn't do anything, now, it would be too late.

"This isn't going to help anyone," the Doctor told him. "We have the same mind, you know that nothing good will come of what you're doing!" 

The Metacrisis Doctor scoffed, glaring at the Doctor from his place around Donna. "We may look alike, Doctor, but we're not the same. I have too much human in me. I see things in a different point of view. I can't let the woman I love die because of me, so I did this!" 

"That's not what we do," the Doctor said, his sonic already glowing in his hand. Donna had no idea what he was planning to do with his sonic screwdriver against the biggest flipping paradox machine in probably ever, but she hoped he had a plan. "We are Time Lords! We do not interfere! Time doesn't belong to us, it doesn't belong to anyone! I can't promise anything more than a tour of the universe, and time and space! Why do you think I never acted on the way I felt about Donna? Because I knew it would lead to this!" 

Donna already had an inkling of how the Doctor felt, but to hear him admit it from his own mouth, and on his own volition made her heart leap in her chest. Oh she wanted to float away, and laugh, and cry at the same time. 

"You don't know," the Metacrisis Doctor said. "You have no idea what you did to her. You pushed us aside like we meant nothing to you! I am willing to erase my entire existence for her, Doctor! To save her from you!"

"I know what I will do," The Doctor, suddenly ten degrees calmer than everyone in the room. "Martha told me everything that happened on the Crucible. And I know why I did it. A universe without Donna Noble...that's just not one I am willing to live with. She is the Most Important Woman in the Universe, and I would rather she die happy never remembering me, than to let her die because I was reckless enough to leave her with you." 

He raised his hand and pressed a button on the sonic. The screwdriver's usual shrill hum seemed to boom tenfold, causing Donna's ears to ring so hard she had to slam her hands over them to keep from passing out. The gauntlets on the Metacrisis Doctor's hands shattered, and the angry red lights in the gallery burst upwards, creating a swirling tornado that seemed to pull everything it could into itself. Donna looked up in horror as the building slowly collapsed into the swirling vortex, pulling buses and columns and buildings along inside. She felt her feet start to rise, and she and the Metacrisis Doctor exchanged wide-eyed looks of panic and terror. 

Grabbing her shoulders, her kissed her on the lips one last time, bleeding as much love and devotion as he could in those last, fleeting seconds. He whispered something in her ear before he shoved Donna backwards, putting her into the Doctor's arms as the maelstrom picked him up. The Doctor wrapped his arms around Donna like he was never going to let her go.

"NO!" Donna shouted, struggling from the Doctor's grip. Tears were streaming down her cheeks as she felt a part of her heart being ripped away from her, even if she couldn't understand why. "NO!!" 

The Doctor pulled her backwards, relying on the small protection of the shields around the TARDIS to stop them from being pulled into the paradox as it tried to correct itself. Donna struggled until they reached the inside of the TARDIS, where Martha and Mickey looked extremely relieved to see her there. 

"Donna!" Martha exclaimed, with a smile on her face as she rushed over to Donna."I'm so glad you're okay."

There was something in that sentence that Donna couldn't quite process. As if Martha's words weren't enough to truly understand just how happy she really was. Donna was right about that. She had no idea how much sleep Martha lost over seeing the Metacrisis Doctor murder the lost and confused Donna from this twisted time. Seeing her there, not totally happy but otherwise fine, was a blessed relief. 

"T-thank you Martha," Donna sighed, letting the young doctor give her a hug. There so many things she wanted to say, but one look and she knew that the TARDIS was just too crowded for a proper row. 

The Doctor made a beeline for the console, instructing Martha to turn off the sonic frequency enhancer he'd rigged up from various parts in the TARDIS and the Hub. The hand remained at its spot underneath the console. Mickey helped ease Donna off the railing, she just looked completely exhausted. 

"The sonic burst managed to reprogram the paradox machine," the Doctor said coldly as he continued to stare down at the console. "Mickey, Martha, once I bring you back to Cardiff, you will forget any of this ever happened. Time has corrected itself, and it will be like this never happened. You'll be slightly disoriented, but fine." 

They were gone in minutes. The universe was restored, everyone happy and any damage the Metacrisis Doctor managed to do was undone. 

Except in the one place where it mattered most.


	5. Chapter 5

_ The TARDIS _

 

Donna took the opportunity to take a swing at the Doctor as they hurled though the Vortex, trying to get as far from what had happened as possible. She remained standing by the door like she was getting ready to burst through it. He remained at the console, glaring moodily at flashing lights and buttons in the blessedly healthy hum of the TARDIS. 

"How can you just leave him out there!?" Donna shrieked, holding on to the railings as the TARDIS felt like it was swung around, buffeted by the winds outside. Then at a press of a button from the Doctor, the TARDIS stabilized. "Doctor!"

He turned to her with an icy glare, burning with emotions that Donna couldn't process. He didn't want to move from the spot he was standing in. He had hoped she would back down, but it wouldn't be Donna if she did. She glared back, daring him to supply her with an answer.

"I gave him a chance, he chose not to listen," he said, looking down at the console.

"He did it because he was convinced you were going to do something awful to me," Donna insisted, standing near him. "He wouldn't tell me what it was. Why didn't you pull him in here with us?"

"He was the source of the paradox, he had to go into the storm," the Doctor said.

"A real answer, Doctor." 

The Doctor turned to Donna with so much hurt on his face that she wanted to take back her question and just shove it into a jar to keep under the console. But they needed to get through this. Too much had happened in the last few days.

"Because he was everything I wanted to avoid," the Doctor said, saying each word like a stab in each of his hearts. Donna could feel it too. "He is what I would become if I...if I..."

She finished the bloody sentence for him. 

"If you admitted that you loved me," Donna said, and now it was her turn to inflict pain. The Doctor gave her a slow, wordless nod. "Do you really think that?"

"We can't have forever, Donna," he said, and they both winced at the admission. It was clear they knew how they felt about each other, if anything they had the Metacrisis Doctor to thank for that. "Inevitably, something will take you from me, and if I let myself, I would do worse than he did," he explained. "The universe can't afford that." 

She wanted to smack his arm for being such an egotistic prawn, but chose instead to come closer to him and touch his arm. Donna half expected him to jerk backwards, but he simply held in a breath. 

"You think I wouldn't stop you?" She asked him. "Because I will stop you. I would do worse than he did just to stop you."

In a surprisingly tender gesture, the Doctor placed his hand over hers and lifted it to his lips to squeeze firmly. It was as if he wanted her words to be real. As if he wanted everything that just happened between them to be true and untrue at the same time. 

"Do you love me, Donna?" He asked in a low, rumbling voice, and Donna felt a dam inside her break. Feelings that she's been hiding away, lies that she'd told herself and him to ward off her betraying emotions, the way the Metacrisis Doctor made her want this Doctor so much she wanted to scream...all of it broke out, and she felt her eyes filling up with tears. 

"You first, Spaceman," she said, and her heart was filled with the chuckle he gave. The next thing she knew, he had planted a kiss in her forehead, on both her cheeks, and her lips. The intimacy shot through her and warmed her toes. He kissed the tracks her tears had left, and she tasted the salt in her own mouth. 

"I love you Donna," he whispered into her skin as she wrapped her arms around him, feeling him press against her in a delicious way. Donna slid over the console, wrapping her legs around his as he pulled her closer, his mouth pressing kisses into her throat and neck as his hands danced and roamed every bit of her heated skin. 

She was in such a hurry, scrabbling for the hem of his shirt, fumbling to snap off his tie and kick off her own shoes, but the Doctor seemed to have nothing but time on his hands as he allowed his hands to roam up the inside of her shirt, to savor the feel of her smooth and creamy skin tremble at his cold touch. 

"Oh get on with it," Donna begged him, squeezing her thighs together at the feel of his very human-like and erection prodding her thigh. "We can go slower next time." 

"Donna, there will be thousands of next times, but none of them will be just like this," the Doctor said, bucking up against her, the bloody timeslag. 

"Is that a promise?" She asked, pushing herself up against him to provide a little counterpoint. She was unable to help the little grin on her face when he couldn't resist a grain. 

"Oh yes," he said in that way of his, and moments later, they were together. Their bodies moved perfectly in that urgent, pleading rhythm, their kisses and touches making promises that they could or could not keep. Donna thinks she will never be as happy as this, as when he's holding on to her like she matters, when he's saying her name with such utter devotion that it makes her want to shut him up. The Doctor is sure that this kind of bliss was temporary, but worth having. 

His mouth closes around her nipple, and her hands squeeze his bum to push him closer. Donna starts to feel something inside her build and twist deliciously. She needed more, and the Doctor was only too happy to oblige. Hoping she wasn't pressing on too many important buttons (was it just her or did they magically vanish?), Donna leaned further back as the Doctor slammed into her. She crossed her ankles behind his back as she felt her mind shatter unto a thousand pieces of bliss. The Doctor cried out as he let himself go completely at her release, making it last, making it count. 

When it was over he pressed his forehead against hers, the both of them panting and smiling like they were naughty teenagers who shagged for the first time. 

"I love you, Doctor." 

* * *

_ Epilogue _

She was slowly backing away from him, begging him not to do what he was about to do. After everything the Metacrisis Doctor had tried to do, the time still came that the Doctor found himself about to take everything away, prepared to live a life without the one person who mattered, rather than live in a universe that didn't have her in it. 

"Don't make me go back," she begged him. "Please don't make me go back."

Her desperate cries shattered his hearts but fell on deaf ears as he approached her. This was it. The end of forever. 

Suddenly, a memory so strong filled Donna's mind that it made her forget the horrible pounding inside her. A moment where winds buffeted his voice, clear and strong as he wrapped his arms around her and kissed her one last time. It was a moment just like this, and Donna found herself throwing her arms around the alien she loved and whispered what could be the one word that would really save her. The word the Metacrisis Doctor hoped was a last ditch effort to keep the Doctor from taking everything away from her.

"Chameleon Arch," she whispered, and the Doctor dropped his hand in shock before she passed out in his arms. Her brain was shutting down at keep the explosions at bay, and he didn't have much time. Turns out the Metacrisis Doctor would end up saving Donna, after all.

The End

 


End file.
